Wake up on the wrong side of the bed,And pull a muscle slightly.In the pain, to the ground you’re led,And jump back up again sprightly.Like the lumpy pillow at the edge,I like my despair rare.Get smacked by the ink trying to caress your hair,While the bespectacled man mouths disappointment.And his wife looks down at you and stares,Brush it all off because hey, it's atonement.Like the lukewarm cereal milk,I like my despair rare.She smiles at you, but her eyes seem to deplore,And her boredom, oh large is it writ.Ah her mouth was a chocolate fountain before,But of late, it seems like it’s on autopilot.Like her constant glances at the icon,I like my despair rare.Breathe in the comforting smell of meat,Smoked and salted to perfection.Only for that one song to play on repeat,And move over to the other section.Unlike what I ordered, and like the steak I got,I like my despair rare.Break off those wonderful relations,Through no fault of your own.And get sent on quite a bad trip,Realizing all that time together was just a loan.Like the price tag on that fancy bottle,I like my despair rare.Go home to watch the grand game,With a six needed for the fans and players to mingle.It seemed as though even fate wanted to maim,As the voices echoed “Single!”Like that dipping yorker, I like my despair rare.Back in bed with a heavy head,Perhaps things didn’t go all that bad.What went wrong? Was everything misread?Maybe this is the time to be sad.I like my despair rare, I do.But maybe it likes me more.

Do not be despair, trust God in every situation.Do not be despair, God will make your path straight.Do not be despair,Stand firm God loves you too.Do not be despair,right now life might look dark here.Do not be despair, There is none as great as God.Do not be despair, God has your back in everything. Do not be despair, I shall continue praying for you.Do not despair, you are more than Over-comers here.Do not be despair, you are truly loved here as well.

Hope is an oddity to me. It is a double-edged sword. Just enough keeps one going. Too much can leave one in despair.

Throughout my life I have struggled to sustain a suitable balance between hope and despair. The two seem to be interrelated for me.

There were days, even moments, where I had hope that my life would improve. I saw a way out, I found someone who seemed to care for me, I made it through an entire night unharmed... These things gave me hope. I was hopeful.

Then there were other days, even moments, where I was filled with despair. My hope was lost. My heart was sick. There was no way out, everywhere I turned I was met with hatred or disbelief, I was torn apart at night only to be met with "nothing happened" in the morning... These things destroyed my hope. I was hopeless.

My inner struggle between hope and despair kept me alive. I firmly believe this. This same struggle keeps me alive, even today. Too many times I have thought that there was no way out so I surrendered myself to dying. But over and over hope has surfaced.

So I fought. Sometimes I fought against hope. Sometimes I fought for it. It was a sickening cycle. Some days, even now, it is with a sick heart that I press forward.

Today it is with a sick heart that I write. The enormity of my past is weighing down upon me. Normalcy seems to be nothing more than a fleeting hope. One step forward, two steps back. Hope and then despair. My head is screaming once again. It seems that everyone want their say. Everyone wants to be heard. I am one and they are many. Today is a day where I am screaming at them to shut the **** up yet no one hears me. They drown me out and I feel powerless.

Today he is in every corner, no matter where I turn. He is smiling, licking his lips, and he is laughing at me. I tell myself that things are different now; things are better. He laughs harder. Despair is setting in and I am feeling myself surrender while keeping one eye slightly open on the off chance that hope is in another corner that I just can't see yet.

Today is despair with a sick heart. Perhaps tomorrow is hope paired with desire. One can always hope...

How to kéep—is there ány any, is there none such, nowhere known some, bow or brooch or braid or brace, láce, latch or catch or key to keepBack beauty, keep it, beauty, beauty, beauty, … from vanishing away?Ó is there no frowning of these wrinkles, rankéd wrinkles deep,Dówn? no waving off of these most mournful messengers, still messengers, sad and stealing messengers of grey?No there ’s none, there ’s none, O no there ’s none,Nor can you long be, what you now are, called fair,Do what you may do, what, do what you may,And wisdom is early to despair:Be beginning; since, no, nothing can be doneTo keep at bayAge and age’s evils, **** hair,Ruck and wrinkle, drooping, dying, death’s worst, winding sheets, tombs and worms and tumbling to decay;So be beginning, be beginning to despair.O there ’s none; no no no there ’s none:Be beginning to despair, to despair,Despair, despair, despair, despair.

THE GOLDEN ECHO

Spare!There ís one, yes I have one (Hush there!);Only not within seeing of the sun,Not within the singeing of the strong sun,Tall sun’s tingeing, or treacherous the tainting of the earth’s air,Somewhere elsewhere there is ah well where! one,Oné. Yes I can tell such a key, I do know such a place,Where whatever’s prized and passes of us, everything that ’s fresh and fast flying of us, seems to us sweet of us and swiftly away with, done away with, undone,Undone, done with, soon done with, and yet dearly and dangerously sweetOf us, the wimpled-water-dimpled, not-by-morning-matchèd face,The flower of beauty, fleece of beauty, too too apt to, ah! to fleet,Never fleets móre, fastened with the tenderest truthTo its own best being and its loveliness of youth: it is an everlastingness of, O it is an all youth!Come then, your ways and airs and looks, locks, maiden gear, gallantry and gaiety and grace,Winning ways, airs innocent, maiden manners, sweet looks, loose locks, long locks, lovelocks, gaygear, going gallant, girlgrace—Resign them, sign them, seal them, send them, motion them with breath,And with sighs soaring, soaring síghs deliverThem; beauty-in-the-ghost, deliver it, early now, long before deathGive beauty back, beauty, beauty, beauty, back to God, beauty’s self and beauty’s giver.See; not a hair is, not an eyelash, not the least lash lost; every hairIs, hair of the head, numbered.Nay, what we had lighthanded left in surly the mere mouldWill have waked and have waxed and have walked with the wind what while we slept,This side, that side hurling a heavyheaded hundredfoldWhat while we, while we slumbered.O then, weary then why should we tread? O why are we so haggard at the heart, so care-coiled, care-killed, so ******, so fashed, so cogged, so cumbered,When the thing we freely fórfeit is kept with fonder a care,Fonder a care kept than we could have kept it, keptFar with fonder a care (and we, we should have lost it) finer, fonderA care kept.—Where kept? Do but tell us where kept, where.—Yonder.—What high as that! We follow, now we follow.—Yonder, yes yonder, yonder,Yonder.

here in the valley of despair there is a forest black withthe blight of your failed aspirations

here in the valley of despair there are endless pits filled with outcropping rocks actingas the teeth for the crazy smileof the men who lost themselvesin these endless pits calleddepression

here in the valley of despairthe brightness and elation oflife is known only as a memoryof the forgotten sun

here in the valley of despairwe walk about knowing wecannot go anywhere for herein the valley of despair themountains that block our escape only grow as we climbthem and the pits in whichlive refuse to have a bottom

He did not wear his scarlet coat, For blood and wine are red,And blood and wine were on his hands When they found him with the dead,The poor dead woman whom he loved, And murdered in her bed.

He walked amongst the Trial Men In a suit of shabby grey;A cricket cap was on his head, And his step seemed light and gay;But I never saw a man who looked So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eyeUpon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky,And at every drifting cloud that went With sails of silver by.

I walked, with other souls in pain, Within another ring,And was wondering if the man had done A great or little thing,When a voice behind me whispered low, “That fellows got to swing.”

Dear Christ! the very prison walls Suddenly seemed to reel,And the sky above my head became Like a casque of scorching steel;And, though I was a soul in pain, My pain I could not feel.

I only knew what hunted thought Quickened his step, and whyHe looked upon the garish day With such a wistful eye;The man had killed the thing he loved And so he had to die.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves By each let this be heard,Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word,The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword!

Some **** their love when they are young, And some when they are old;Some strangle with the hands of Lust, Some with the hands of Gold:The kindest use a knife, because The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long, Some sell, and others buy;Some do the deed with many tears, And some without a sigh:For each man kills the thing he loves, Yet each man does not die.

He does not die a death of shame On a day of dark disgrace,Nor have a noose about his neck, Nor a cloth upon his face,Nor drop feet foremost through the floor Into an empty place

He does not sit with silent men Who watch him night and day;Who watch him when he tries to weep, And when he tries to pray;Who watch him lest himself should rob The prison of its prey.

He does not wake at dawn to see Dread figures throng his room,The shivering Chaplain robed in white, The Sheriff stern with gloom,And the Governor all in shiny black, With the yellow face of Doom.

He does not rise in piteous haste To put on convict-clothes,While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats, and notes Each new and nerve-twitched pose,******* a watch whose little ticks Are like horrible hammer-blows.

He does not know that sickening thirst That sands one’s throat, beforeThe hangman with his gardener’s gloves Slips through the padded door,And binds one with three leathern thongs, That the throat may thirst no more.

He does not bend his head to hear The Burial Office read,Nor, while the terror of his soul Tells him he is not dead,Cross his own coffin, as he moves Into the hideous shed.

He does not stare upon the air Through a little roof of glass;He does not pray with lips of clay For his agony to pass;Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek The kiss of Caiaphas.

II

Six weeks our guardsman walked the yard, In a suit of shabby grey:His cricket cap was on his head, And his step seemed light and gay,But I never saw a man who looked So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eyeUpon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky,And at every wandering cloud that trailed Its raveled fleeces by.

He did not wring his hands, as do Those witless men who dareTo try to rear the changeling Hope In the cave of black Despair:He only looked upon the sun, And drank the morning air.

He did not wring his hands nor weep, Nor did he peek or pine,But he drank the air as though it held Some healthful anodyne;With open mouth he drank the sun As though it had been wine!

And I and all the souls in pain, Who tramped the other ring,Forgot if we ourselves had done A great or little thing,And watched with gaze of dull amaze The man who had to swing.

And strange it was to see him pass With a step so light and gay,And strange it was to see him look So wistfully at the day,And strange it was to think that he Had such a debt to pay.

For oak and elm have pleasant leaves That in the spring-time shoot:But grim to see is the gallows-tree, With its adder-bitten root,And, green or dry, a man must die Before it bears its fruit!

The loftiest place is that seat of grace For which all worldlings try:But who would stand in hempen band Upon a scaffold high,And through a murderer’s collar take His last look at the sky?

It is sweet to dance to violins When Love and Life are fair:To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes Is delicate and rare:But it is not sweet with nimble feet To dance upon the air!

So with curious eyes and sick surmise We watched him day by day,And wondered if each one of us Would end the self-same way,For none can tell to what red Hell His sightless soul may stray.

At last the dead man walked no more Amongst the Trial Men,And I knew that he was standing up In the black dock’s dreadful pen,And that never would I see his face In God’s sweet world again.

Like two doomed ships that pass in storm We had crossed each other’s way:But we made no sign, we said no word, We had no word to say;For we did not meet in the holy night, But in the shameful day.

A prison wall was round us both, Two outcast men were we:The world had ****** us from its heart, And God from out His care:And the iron gin that waits for Sin Had caught us in its snare.

III

In Debtors’ Yard the stones are hard, And the dripping wall is high,So it was there he took the air Beneath the leaden sky,And by each side a Warder walked, For fear the man might die.

Or else he sat with those who watched His anguish night and day;Who watched him when he rose to weep, And when he crouched to pray;Who watched him lest himself should rob Their scaffold of its prey.

The Governor was strong upon The Regulations Act:The Doctor said that Death was but A scientific fact:And twice a day the Chaplain called And left a little tract.

And twice a day he smoked his pipe, And drank his quart of beer:His soul was resolute, and held No hiding-place for fear;He often said that he was glad The hangman’s hands were near.

But why he said so strange a thing No Warder dared to ask:For he to whom a watcher’s doom Is given as his task,Must set a lock upon his lips, And make his face a mask.

Or else he might be moved, and try To comfort or console:And what should Human Pity do Pent up in Murderers’ Hole?What word of grace in such a place Could help a brother’s soul?

With slouch and swing around the ring We trod the Fool’s Parade!We did not care: we knew we were The Devil’s Own Brigade:And shaven head and feet of lead Make a merry masquerade.

We tore the tarry rope to shreds With blunt and bleeding nails;We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors, And cleaned the shining rails:And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank, And clattered with the pails.

We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones, We turned the dusty drill:We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns, And sweated on the mill:But in the heart of every man Terror was lying still.

So still it lay that every day Crawled like a ****-clogged wave:And we forgot the bitter lot That waits for fool and knave,Till once, as we tramped in from work, We passed an open grave.

With yawning mouth the yellow hole Gaped for a living thing;The very mud cried out for blood To the thirsty asphalte ring:And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair Some prisoner had to swing.

Right in we went, with soul intent On Death and Dread and Doom:The hangman, with his little bag, Went shuffling through the gloomAnd each man trembled as he crept Into his numbered tomb.

That night the empty corridors Were full of forms of Fear,And up and down the iron town Stole feet we could not hear,And through the bars that hide the stars White faces seemed to peer.

He lay as one who lies and dreams In a pleasant meadow-land,The watcher watched him as he slept, And could not understandHow one could sleep so sweet a sleep With a hangman close at hand?

But there is no sleep when men must weep Who never yet have wept:So we—the fool, the fraud, the knave— That endless vigil kept,And through each brain on hands of pain Another’s terror crept.

Alas! it is a fearful thing To feel another’s guilt!For, right within, the sword of Sin Pierced to its poisoned hilt,And as molten lead were the tears we shed For the blood we had not spilt.

The Warders with their shoes of felt Crept by each padlocked door,And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe, Grey figures on the floor,And wondered why men knelt to pray Who never prayed before.

All through the night we knelt and prayed, Mad mourners of a corpse!The troubled plumes of midnight were The plumes upon a hearse:And bitter wine upon a sponge Was the savior of Remorse.

The **** crew, the red **** crew, But never came the day:And crooked shape of Terror crouched, In the corners where we lay:And each evil sprite that walks by night Before us seemed to play.

They glided past, they glided fast, Like travelers through a mist:They mocked the moon in a rigadoon Of delicate turn and twist,And with formal pace and loathsome grace The phantoms kept their tryst.

With mop and mow, we saw them go, Slim shadows hand in hand:About, about, in ghostly rout They trod a saraband:And the ****** grotesques made arabesques, Like the wind upon the sand!

With the pirouettes of marionettes, They tripped on pointed tread:But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear, As their grisly masque they led,And loud they sang, and long they sang, For they sang to wake the dead.

“Oho!” they cried, “The world is wide, But fettered limbs go lame!And once, or twice, to throw the dice Is a gentlemanly game,But he does not win who plays with Sin In the secret House of Shame.”

No things of air these antics were That frolicked with such glee:To men whose lives were held in gyves, And whose feet might not go free,Ah! wounds of Christ! they were living things, Most terrible to see.

Around, around, they waltzed and wound; Some wheeled in smirking pairs:With the mincing step of demirep Some sidled up the stairs:And with subtle sneer, and fawning leer, Each helped us at our prayers.

The morning wind began to moan, But still the night went on:Through its giant loom the web of gloom Crept till each thread was spun:And, as we prayed, we grew afraid Of the Justice of the Sun.

The moaning wind went wandering round The weeping prison-wall:Till like a wheel of turning-steel We felt the minutes crawl:O moaning wind! what had we done To have such a seneschal?

At last I saw the shadowed bars Like a lattice wrought in lead,Move right across the whitewashed wall That faced my three-plank bed,And I knew that somewhere in the world God’s dreadful dawn was red.

At six o’clock we cleaned our cells, At seven all was still,But the sough and swing of a mighty wing The prison seemed to fill,For the Lord of Death with icy breath Had entered in to ****.

He did not pass in purple pomp, Nor ride a moon-white steed.Three yards of cord and a sliding board Are all the gallows’ need:So with rope of shame the Herald came To do the secret deed.

We were as men who through a fen Of filthy darkness *****:We did not dare to breathe a prayer, Or give our anguish scope:Something was dead in each of us, And what was dead was Hope.

For Man’s grim Justice goes its way, And will not swerve aside:It slays the weak, it slays the strong, It has a deadly stride:With iron heel it slays the strong, The monstrous parricide!

We waited for the stroke of eight: Each tongue was thick with thirst:For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate That makes a man accursed,And Fate will use a running noose For the best man and the worst.

We had no other thing to do, Save to wait for the sign to come:So, like things of stone in a valley lone, Quiet we sat and dumb:But each man’s heart beat thick and quick Like a madman on a drum!

With sudden shock the prison-clock Smote on the shivering air,And from all the gaol rose up a wail Of impotent despair,Like the sound that frightened marshes hear From a ***** in his lair.

And as one sees most fearful things In the crystal of a dream,We saw the greasy hempen rope Hooked to the blackened beam,And heard the prayer the hangman’s snare Strangled into a scream.

And all the woe that moved him so That he gave that bitter cry,And the wild regrets, and the ****** sweats, None knew so well as I:For he who lives more lives than one More deaths than one must die.

IV

There is no chapel on the day On which they hang a man:The Chaplain’s heart is far too sick, Or his face is far too wan,Or there is that written in his eyes Which none should look upon.

So they kept us close till nigh on noon, And then they rang the bell,And the Warders with their jingling keys Opened each listening cell,And down the iron stair we tramped, Each from his separate Hell.

Out into God’s sweet air we went, But not in wonted way,For this man’s face was white with fear, And that man’s face was grey,And I never saw sad men who looked So wistfully at the day.

I never saw sad men who looked With such a wistful eyeUpon that little tent of blue We prisoners called the sky,And at every careless cloud that passed In happy freedom by.

But there were those amongst us all Who walked with downcast head,And knew that, had each got his due, They should have died instead:He had but killed a thing that lived Whilst they had killed the dead.

For he who sins a second time Wakes a dead soul to pain,And draws it from its spotted shroud, And makes it bleed again,And makes it bleed great gouts of blood And makes it bleed in vain!

Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb With crooked arrows starred,Silently we went round and round The slippery asphalte yard;Silently we went round and round, And no man spoke a word.

Silently we went round and round, And through each hollow mindThe memory of dreadful things Rushed like a dreadful wind,And Horror stalked before each man, And terror crept behind.

The Warders strutted up and down, And kept their herd of brutes,Their uniforms were ***** and span, And they wore their Sunday suits,But we knew the work they had been at By the quicklime on their boots.

For where a grave had opened wide, There was no grave at all:Only a stretch of mud and sand By the hideous prison-wall,And a little heap of burning lime, That the man should have his pall.

For he has a pall, this wretched man, Such as few men can claim:Deep down below a prison-yard, Naked for greater shame,He lies, with fetters on each foot, Wrapt in a sheet of flame!

And all the while the burning lime Eats flesh and bone away,It eats the brittle bone by night, And the soft flesh by the day,It eats the flesh and bones by turns, But it eats the heart alway.

For three long years they will not sow Or root or seedling there:For three long years the unblessed spot Will sterile be and bare,And look upon the wondering sky With unreproachful stare.

They think a murderer’s heart would taint Each simple seed they sow.It is not true! God’s kindly earth Is kindlier than men know,And the red rose would but blow more red, The white rose whiter blow.

Out of his mouth a red, red rose! Out of his heart a white!For who can say by what strange way, Christ brings his will to light,Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore Bloomed in the great Pope’s sight?

But neither milk-white rose nor red May bloom in prison air;The shard, the pebble, and the flint, Are what they give us there:For flowers have been known to heal A common man’s despair.

So never will wine-red rose or white, Petal by petal, fallOn that stretch of mud and sand that lies By the hideous prison-wall,To tell the men who ***** the yard That God’s Son died for all.

Yet though the hideous prison-wall Still hems him round and round,And a spirit man not walk by night That is with fetters bound,And a spirit may not weep that lies In such unholy ground,

He is at peace—this wretched man— At peace, or will be soon:There is no thing to make him mad, Nor does Terror walk at noon,For the lampless Earth in which he lies Has neither Sun nor Moon.

They hanged him as a beast is hanged: They did not even tollA reguiem that might have brought Rest to his startled soul,But hurriedly they took him out, And hid him in a hole.

They stripped him of his canvas clothes, And gave him to the flies;They mocked the swollen purple throat And the stark and staring eyes:And with laughter loud they heaped the shroud In which their convict lies.

The Chaplain would not kneel to pray By his dishonored grave:Nor mark it with that blessed Cross That Christ for sinners gave,Because the man was one of those Whom Christ came down to save.

Yet all is well; he has but passed To Life’s appointed bourne:And alien tears will fill for him Pity’s long-broken urn,For his mourner will be outcast men, And outcasts always mourn.

V

I know not whether Laws be right, Or whether Laws be wrong;All that we know who lie in gaol Is that the wall is strong;And that each day is like a year, A year whose days are long.

But this I know, that every Law That men have made for Man,Since first Man took his brother’s life, And the sad world began,But straws the wheat and saves the chaff With a most evil fan.

This too I know—and wise it were If each could know the same—That every prison that men build Is built with bricks of shame,And bound with bars lest Christ should see How men their brothers maim.

With bars they blur the gracious moon, And blind the goodly sun:And they do well to hide their Hell, For in it things are doneThat Son of God nor son of Man Ever should look upon!

The vilest deeds like poison weeds Bloom well in prison-air:It is only what is good in Man That wastes and withers there:Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate, And the Warder is Despair

For they starve the little frightened child Till it weeps both night and day:And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool, And gibe the old and grey,And some grow mad, and all grow bad,And none a word may say.

Each narrow cell in which we dwell Is foul and dark latrine,And the fetid breath of living Death Chokes up each grated screen,And all, but Lust, is turned to dust In Humanity’s machine.

The brackish water that we drink Creeps with a loathsome slime,And the bitter bread they weigh in scales Is full of chalk and lime,And Sleep will not lie down, but walks Wild-eyed and cries to Time.

But though lean Hunger and green Thirst Like asp with adder fight,We have little care of prison fare, For what chills and kills outrightIs that every stone one lifts by day Becomes one’s heart by night.

With midnight always in one’s heart, And twilight in one’s cell,We turn the crank, or tear the rope, Each in his separate Hell,And the silence is more awful far Than the sound of a brazen bell.

And never a human voice comes near To speak a gentle word:And the eye that watches through the door Is pitiless and hard:And by all forgot, we rot and rot, With soul and body marred.

And thus we rust Life’s iron chain Degraded and alone:And some men curse, and some men weep, And some men make no moan:But God’s eternal Laws are kind And break the heart of stone.

And every human heart that breaks, In prison-cell or yard,Is as that broken box that gave Its treasure to the Lord,And filled the unclean *****’s house With the scent of costliest nard.

Ah! happy day they whose hearts can break And peace of pardon win!How else may man make straight his plan And cleanse his soul from Sin?How else but through a broken heart May Lord Christ enter in?

And he of the swollen purple throat. And the stark and staring eyes,Waits for the holy hands that took The Thief to Paradise;And a broken and a contrite heart The Lord will not despise.

The man in red who reads the Law Gave him three weeks of life,Three little weeks in which to heal His soul of his soul’s strife,And cleanse from every blot of blood The hand that held the knife.

And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand, The hand that held the steel:For only blood can wipe out blood, And only tears can heal:And the crimson stain that was of Cain Became Christ’s snow-white seal.

VI

In Reading gaol by Reading town There is a pit of shame,And in it lies a wretched man Eaten by teeth of flame,In burning winding-sheet he lies, And his grave has got no name.

And there, till Christ call forth the dead, In silence let him lie:No need to waste the foolish tear, Or heave the windy sigh:The man had killed the thing he loved, And so he had to die.

And all men **** the thing they love, By all let this be heard,Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word,The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword!

People never know how low you can sink, how deep into the rabbit hole you can drop. Madness picks you up. Madness is a weird thing.It's a process. It's so small at first, so undetectable, that no one realizes what is happening until it is too late.Once it happens, there is no going back.But the descent is slow. It takes little bits of you everyday, every time someone or something hurt you.

Chip, chip, chip.

Like workers in a mine, chipping at the ground to find gold.But there is no gold to be found in destruction.There is only sadness, anger and despair. Despair leads the way to madness. Despair has no remorse, no boundaries. Despair will crush you down and won't stop. Despair leads you down and with it tumbles other feelings, incomprehension, frustration, desires, love, hate, they all follow you down and form this clumps of horrors you can't get out of. They keep you from breathing, speaking, hearing anything but your own despair.And maybe you can't feel yourself change, but you do.Slowly. What once made you smile makes you smirk. What once made you upset makes you smile. Despair drills a hole in you body and, from it, everything that makes you you tumbles down and your body doesn't host a human anymore. It hosts a terrible thing. A shell of a human being with nothing left to lose. And that is the worst that can happen to anyone.If there is no hope, no feelings, nothing, you become a danger.There is nothing you wouldn't do.Insanity doesn't destroy you.It destroys everything around you. Those who loved you one, those who cross your path. Anyone in contact with you loses a piece of themselves. A hopeless person is a slow bomb. Its detonation is silent and lasts a long time, hurting hundreds of people.Then, one day, it's over. What if we could detect madness and cure it? I imagine a little goes a long way with madness. I imagine a little love and care can solve the problem. Love is hope. Care shows importance. And if you matter, you don't get desperate. I hope I never get desperate. I think, maybe, my family is keeping me sane. I would go insane without them. They are my hope. They show me I matter when no one else does.But that isn't despair.It's extreme, excruciating loneliness.It hurts in your whole body, hurts on a cellular level. I think… it may be the worst kind of pain, when no one chooses to love you. Not because they are your family and feel the need to love you because you share blood. But because they think you are worth it.I am not worth anyone's love.And that is.Just.So.****.Painful.My skin is one fire and I just stand there, burning alive forever. But I am willing to burn forever more if it means I get to drown in hope one day.

I've wokenalone & crushedBy the evil around meIn unfamiliar landsI've fallenIn deep dreams of despairWhere no oneWas reaching for my handWhere I could not standI have lostSqaundered & regrettedBut no moreI am foundNot by those who love meNot by those who don'ti have found meI had to stop seeing The darkness firstI had to concentrateWith everything in me To find the lightI createdI've had to run the race with demonsTo win me backFrom the despairAnd child did it want meIt tried to keep meWith wordsPromises of no painthe despair snatchedmeWith lies that I better right thereIt promised me an endingTo the evils placed upon myselfDespair lied.All its promisesWere only to entice meTo suffer moreit was loves lil lightThat pinhole peeked thruLoves light spied in mine eyeEven when it closed with tearsThru it love shinedAnd when I Raised my headFrom the evilThat had my graspThru loves lightSpread over meLifted me thru the despairWashed awayThe tar the evilsSpattered me withThru such very small wordsI heard themIn my deafness screaming"I need her life, to continue on,I need you to shine"Thru loves lil lightThat shinedPinhole in mine eyeI saw the tiny handThat pushed thru the despairAs if it were only airHolding me thereAnd when loves handTouched meI felt all the peopleI lostAnd the ones still out thereThen loves handTouched my faceAnd reminded me of my ownBeauty that the worldWas desperate for me to shareI remember this time in my lifeThe blood on the floorsEmpty pill bottles scatteredThe tears of painAnd the screamsOh the screamsI remember them clearI tremble even nowFrom that timeI fear its grasp every secondMostly because I dont knowExactly how it got a hold of meLove has no longerLet me be scaredLove has brought me thruTo you To shareLoves pinhole of lightTo shine in your eyeTo make you awareI'm desperately holdingout mine handThru your despairThru your painThru your lossThru love saving meI did not know thenThru love I was broughtTo reach Thru to youWhat saved meI love and I care...

It is said by smell Impossible be detectedI am here to say they are quite mistakenFor it is as heavy as night blooming jasmineOverpoweringIntoxicating

The smell of white calla liliesHeralds the coming of deathAnnouncing another soul from life takenDespair indeed has a scent

Lain on a headstone in reverenceThe wreath of flowersPosses a perfume of its ownDepression and loss infiltrate the heart A cologne that permeates the air There is I can assure you A fragrance of despair

This poem is copyrighted and stored in author base. All material subject to Copyright Infringement lawsSection 512(c)(3) of the U.S. Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. S512(c)(3), Tammy M Darby

Once, I think I half remember,Ere the grey skies of NovemberQuench'd my youth's aspiring ember,Liv'd there such a thing as bliss;Skies that now are dark were beaming,Bold and azure, splendid seemingTill I learn'd it all was dreaming —Deadly drowsiness of Dis.

But the stream of Time, swift flowing,Brings the torment of half-knowing —Dimly rushing, blindly goingPast the never-trodden lea;And the voyager, repining,Sees the wicked death-fires shining,Hears the wicked petrel's whiningAs he helpless drifts to sea.

Evil wings in ether beating;Vultures at the spirit eating;Things unseen forever fleetingBlack against the leering sky.Ghastly shades of bygone gladness,Clawing fiends of future sadness,Mingle in a cloud of madnessEver on the soul to lie.

Thus the living, lone and sobbing,In the throes of anguish throbbing,With the loathsome Furies robbingNight and noon of peace and rest.But beyond the groans and gratingOf abhorrent Life, is waitingSweet Oblivion, culminatingAll the years of fruitless quest.

Trapped and chained and jailed in the grip of misery and the hungry mouth of despairIts serpentine tounge wrapped tightly around your neckA perfectly fitted noose Deep rooted crooked fangs and hooks and teethTo crush your bones Suspend your soul And poison your heartHanging helplessly as your Body and dreams and hopes Are dissolved into black sludge Your arms stolen of everything You ever loved and held dearAnd then without mercy Your very arms ripped out Your face wiped clean No eyes to see with No mouth to SCREAMTreasured memories erased And turned into daggers of tormentAn endless cavern of echoes Of doubts and fears And blames And liesAll LIESBut the echos scream and Repeat and scream And repeat and Repeat and Repeat And RepeatAnd you can't help but belive the lies Being carved into your skin Your heart your soulIt's all your fault it's all your faultIT'S ALL YOUR FAULTYOU'RE HERE... BECAUSE IT'S YOUR OWN FAULTLies though... all liesMisery lies and it lies In your heart And it lies in your soul And it lies in your everythingMisery wants your company Misery wants your EVERYTHINGMisery wants to paint its ugly Over your beauty and **** your light and vibranceMisery singing you lies of sweet oblivion and solitude "stay here stay here... I'll take your pain away... just give me your all and I'll give you my numb... no one will love you so let me make it all numb..."Another lie of misery... Carved deeper into your heartCarving and slicing and burning lie after lieTaking you apart and breaking you downCasting and reshaping you the stolen pieces of you into bricks Forcing your hands to build up a wallMisery doing everything to make you feel at homeVenomous lies slipping from its rotted forked tounge "This is where you belong... I'll love you... just let me make you numb..."Misery lies while singing false lullabies Trying to steal you awayTrying to make the world darker By killing your lightTrying to hide your beauty in the Mouth of despair Misery wants the world to sink into a Murkier shade of greyIt knows our world is falling apart And that by claiming you it can Quicken our descent Its all just lies... the chains that bind you... the lies that cut and carve you down... miseries cold sinking in... the closer you get to numb the easier its lies are to belive... slipping away... the numb and oblivion. .. just inches away... comfortably dark liesLIES ...DON'­TDON'T FADEDON'T BELIEVEDON'T GO AWAY If... if you have done anything Anything wrong, it's this and only This, you're too beautiful for this world, this broken crumbling world, you looked too deeply, you felt too much...Loved too much.. and then life hurt, breathing hurt... and you then you looked deeper, felt deeper, loved more... against the hurt and the pain... the sky was falling and you tried to hold it back up... too kind, too sweet... if anything this world doesn't deserve you. .. but oh... it needs you...I've seen your light, been touched by the grace and beauty of your heart...There's no easy escape from miseries grip And the mouth of despairNo quick fix No band-aid brand cure A hard battle fought That not everyone can winNo guarantees I can give...But I will climb into the mouth With you You don't have to do it alone Win or lose I'm right here with youI'll die here by your side Just for a moment One moment to love your soul Your heart Your everything

2.“Do not feel lonely, the entire universe is inside you.Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.

Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames.” ― Rumi

3.“The way of love is not a subtle argument.

The door there is devastation.

Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom. How do they learn it?

They fall, and falling, they're given wings.” ― Rumi

4.“The morning wind spreads its fresh smell. We must get up and take that in, that wind that lets us live. Breathe before it's gone.

Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.” ― Rumi

5.“You are so weak. Give up to grace.The ocean takes care of each wave till it gets to shore.You need more help than you know.

Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone's soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.” ― Rumi, The Essential Rumi

6.“You think you are alivebecause you breathe air?Shame on you, that you are alive in such a limited way.Don't be without Love, so you won't feel dead.Die in Love and stay alive forever.

I want to see you.Know your voice.

Recognise you when youfirst come 'round the corner.

Sense your scent when I come into a room you've just left.

Know the lift of your heel,the glide of your foot.

Become familiar with the way you purse your lipsthen let them part, just the slightest bit,when I lean in to your spaceand kiss you.

I want to know the joy of how you whisper “more”... ­ ― Rumi

7.“When you go through a hard period,When everything seems to oppose you,... When you feel you cannot even bear one more minute,NEVER GIVE UP!Because it is the time and place that the course will divert!

The cure for pain is in the pain. In Silence, there is eloquence. Stop weaving and see how the pattern improves.

The truth was a mirror in the hands of God. It fell, and broke into pieces. Everybody took a piece of it, and they looked at it and thought they had the truth.” ― Rumi

8.“Study me as much as you like, you will not know me, for I differ in a hundred ways from what you see me to be. Put yourself behind my eyes and see me as I see myself, for I have chosen to dwell in a place you cannot see.

Moonlight floods the whole sky from horizon to horizon;How much it can fill your room depends on its windows.” ― Rumi, The Essential Rumi

9.“Keep walking, though there's no place to get to.Don't try to see through the distances.That's not for human beings. Move within,But don't move the way fear makes you move.

If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?

Start a huge, foolish project, like Noah…it makes absolutely no difference what people think of you.” ― Rumi

10.“Do you know what you are?You are a manuscript oƒ a divine letter.You are a mirror reflecting a noble face. This universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself;everything that you want, you are already that.” ― Rumi, Hush, Don't Say Anything to God: Passionate Poems of Rumi

11.“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field.I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grassthe world is too full to talk about.

What you seek, is seeking you.” ― Rumi

12.“The lion is most handsome when looking for food.

Pain is a treasure, for it contains mercies.Love comes with a knife, not some shy question, and not with fears for its reputation!

The power of love came into me,and I became fierce like a lion,then tender like the evening star.” ― Rumi

14.“Suffering is a gift. In it is hidden mercy.

Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn't matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair.. come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet again, come, come.

But listen to me. For one moment - quit being sad. Hear blessingsdropping their blossomsaround you.

I closed my mouth and spoke to you in a hundred silent ways.” ― Rumi

15.“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don't go back to sleep!You must ask for what you really want.Don't go back to sleep!People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch,The door is round and openDon't go back to sleep!

These pains you feel are messengers. Listen to them.” ― Rumi, The Essential Rumi

16.“Like a sculptor, if necessary,carve a friend out of stone.Realise that your inner sight is blindand try to see a treasure in everyone.” ― Rumi

There are lovers content with longing.I’m not one of them.” ― Rumi, The Essential Rumi

18.“There is a secret medicine given only to those who hurt so hard they can't hope.The hopers would feel slighted if they knew.

You were born with potential. You were born with goodness and trust. You were born with ideals and dreams. You were born with greatness. You were born with wings. You are not meant for crawling, so don't. You have wings. Learn to use them and fly.” ― Rumi

19.“Forget safety.Live where you fear to live.Destroy your reputation.Be notorious.

Inside you, there’s an artist you don’t know about… say yes quickly, if you know, if you’ve known it from before the beginning of the universe.” ― Rumi

20.“Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.” ― Rumi

"On a daywhen the wind is perfect,the sail just needs to open and the world is full of beauty.Today is such a day.” ― Rumi

S T – 25 feb 14

Rumi - born to native Persian speaking parents in 1207.Died 1273 AD.Rumi (an evolutionary thinker) believed passionately in the use of music, poetry and dance as a path for reaching God.

ANY state of mind but despair is illusion.ANY illusion is a deceit to oneself.ANYTHING but despair is false.Illusion will always be just a lie to give meaning to delusions.To hide truths and ease the consciousness to false belief.Reality is only evident when despair prevails.When eyes can see beyond the masks and veils of the everyday.Illusion and delusion are the common state in which we live.The reality of despair is where truths prevail always.Illusion and delusion torn aside.... despair.

There is Sadness. Darkness. Despair.The world is filled with it,The problem humans have;few have discovered the secrets,To joyful despair.Not as in learning to cope with, And even enjoy pain.Instead the techniques of rising to a challenge.Finding the light in the dark, the good in the bad.The problem;We are too afraid of the unknown.So terrified when we cannot see the path that lie forthBut little do we know, that taking the unforgettable leap into the darkness is just a start.To forging your own path.To facing your fate with no fear and saying "you cannot sculpt my being."I will choose my own destiny.I will choose to see the world around me in a new, explosion of light.For It is the only way to ever unlock,The secrets to joyful despair.

High on a throne of royal state, which far Outshone the wealth or Ormus and of Ind,Or where the gorgeous East with richest handShowers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,Satan exalted sat, by merit raisedTo that bad eminence; and, from despairThus high uplifted beyond hope, aspiresBeyond thus high, insatiate to pursueVain war with Heaven; and, by success untaught,His proud imaginations thus displayed:— “Powers and Dominions, Deities of Heaven!—For, since no deep within her gulf can holdImmortal vigour, though oppressed and fallen,I give not Heaven for lost: from this descentCelestial Virtues rising will appearMore glorious and more dread than from no fall,And trust themselves to fear no second fate!—Me though just right, and the fixed laws of Heaven,Did first create your leader—next, free choiceWith what besides in council or in fightHath been achieved of merit—yet this loss,Thus far at least recovered, hath much moreEstablished in a safe, unenvied throne,Yielded with full consent. The happier stateIn Heaven, which follows dignity, might drawEnvy from each inferior; but who hereWill envy whom the highest place exposesForemost to stand against the Thunderer’s aimYour bulwark, and condemns to greatest shareOf endless pain? Where there is, then, no goodFor which to strive, no strife can grow up thereFrom faction: for none sure will claim in HellPrecedence; none whose portion is so smallOf present pain that with ambitious mindWill covet more! With this advantage, then,To union, and firm faith, and firm accord,More than can be in Heaven, we now returnTo claim our just inheritance of old,Surer to prosper than prosperityCould have assured us; and by what best way,Whether of open war or covert guile,We now debate. Who can advise may speak.” He ceased; and next him Moloch, sceptred king,Stood up—the strongest and the fiercest SpiritThat fought in Heaven, now fiercer by despair.His trust was with th’ Eternal to be deemedEqual in strength, and rather than be lessCared not to be at all; with that care lostWent all his fear: of God, or Hell, or worse,He recked not, and these words thereafter spake:— “My sentence is for open war. Of wiles,More unexpert, I boast not: them let thoseContrive who need, or when they need; not now.For, while they sit contriving, shall the rest—Millions that stand in arms, and longing waitThe signal to ascend—sit lingering here,Heaven’s fugitives, and for their dwelling-placeAccept this dark opprobrious den of shame,The prison of his ryranny who reignsBy our delay? No! let us rather choose,Armed with Hell-flames and fury, all at onceO’er Heaven’s high towers to force resistless way,Turning our tortures into horrid armsAgainst the Torturer; when, to meet the noiseOf his almighty engine, he shall hearInfernal thunder, and, for lightning, seeBlack fire and horror shot with equal rageAmong his Angels, and his throne itselfMixed with Tartarean sulphur and strange fire,His own invented torments. But perhapsThe way seems difficult, and steep to scaleWith upright wing against a higher foe!Let such bethink them, if the sleepy drenchOf that forgetful lake benumb not still,That in our porper motion we ascendUp to our native seat; descent and fallTo us is adverse. Who but felt of late,When the fierce foe hung on our broken rearInsulting, and pursued us through the Deep,With what compulsion and laborious flightWe sunk thus low? Th’ ascent is easy, then;Th’ event is feared! Should we again provokeOur stronger, some worse way his wrath may findTo our destruction, if there be in HellFear to be worse destroyed! What can be worseThan to dwell here, driven out from bliss, condemnedIn this abhorred deep to utter woe!Where pain of unextinguishable fireMust exercise us without hope of endThe vassals of his anger, when the scourgeInexorably, and the torturing hour,Calls us to penance? More destroyed than thus,We should be quite abolished, and expire.What fear we then? what doubt we to incenseHis utmost ire? which, to the height enraged,Will either quite consume us, and reduceTo nothing this essential—happier farThan miserable to have eternal being!—Or, if our substance be indeed divine,And cannot cease to be, we are at worstOn this side nothing; and by proof we feelOur power sufficient to disturb his Heaven,And with perpetual inroads to alarm,Though inaccessible, his fatal throne:Which, if not victory, is yet revenge.” He ended frowning, and his look denouncedDesperate revenge, and battle dangerousTo less than gods. On th’ other side up roseBelial, in act more graceful and humane.A fairer person lost not Heaven; he seemedFor dignity composed, and high exploit.But all was false and hollow; though his tongueDropped manna, and could make the worse appearThe better reason, to perplex and dashMaturest counsels: for his thoughts were low— To vice industrious, but to nobler deedsTimorous and slothful. Yet he pleased the ear,And with persuasive accent thus began:— “I should be much for open war, O Peers,As not behind in hate, if what was urgedMain reason to persuade immediate warDid not dissuade me most, and seem to castOminous conjecture on the whole success;When he who most excels in fact of arms,In what he counsels and in what excelsMistrustful, grounds his courage on despairAnd utter dissolution, as the scopeOf all his aim, after some dire revenge.First, what revenge? The towers of Heaven are filledWith armed watch, that render all accessImpregnable: oft on the bodering DeepEncamp their legions, or with obscure wingScout far and wide into the realm of Night,Scorning surprise. Or, could we break our wayBy force, and at our heels all Hell should riseWith blackest insurrection to confoundHeaven’s purest light, yet our great Enemy,All incorruptible, would on his throneSit unpolluted, and th’ ethereal mould,Incapable of stain, would soon expelHer mischief, and purge off the baser fire,Victorious. Thus repulsed, our final hopeIs flat despair: we must exasperateTh’ Almighty Victor to spend all his rage;And that must end us; that must be our cure—To be no more. Sad cure! for who would lose,Though full of pain, this intellectual being,Those thoughts that wander through eternity,To perish rather, swallowed up and lostIn the wide womb of uncreated Night,Devoid of sense and motion? And who knows,Let this be good, whether our angry FoeCan give it, or will ever? How he canIs doubtful; that he never will is sure.Will he, so wise, let loose at once his ire,Belike through impotence or unaware,To give his enemies their wish, and endThem in his anger whom his anger savesTo punish endless? ‘Wherefore cease we, then?’Say they who counsel war; ‘we are decreed,Reserved, and destined to eternal woe;Whatever doing, what can we suffer more,What can we suffer worse?’ Is this, then, worst—Thus sitting, thus consulting, thus in arms?What when we fled amain, pursued and struckWith Heaven’s afflicting thunder, and besoughtThe Deep to shelter us? This Hell then seemedA refuge from those wounds. Or when we layChained on the burning lake? That sure was worse.What if the breath that kindled those grim fires,Awaked, should blow them into sevenfold rage,And plunge us in the flames; or from aboveShould intermitted vengeance arm againHis red right hand to plague us? What if allHer stores were opened, and this firmamentOf Hell should spout her cataracts of fire,Impendent horrors, threatening hideous fallOne day upon our heads; while we perhaps,Designing or exhorting glorious war,Caught in a fiery tempest, shall be hurled,Each on his rock transfixed, the sport and preyOr racking whirlwinds, or for ever sunkUnder yon boiling ocean, wrapt in chains,There to converse with everlasting groans,Unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved,Ages of hopeless end? This would be worse.War, therefore, open or concealed, alikeMy voice dissuades; for what can force or guileWith him, or who deceive his mind, whose eyeViews all things at one view? He from Heaven’s heightAll these our motions vain sees and derides,Not more almighty to resist our mightThan wise to frustrate all our plots and wiles.Shall we, then, live thus vile—the race of HeavenThus trampled, thus expelled, to suffer hereChains and these torments? Better these than worse,By my advice; since fate inevitableSubdues us, and omnipotent decree,The Victor’s will. To suffer, as to do,Our strength is equal; nor the law unjustThat so ordains. This was at first resolved,If we were wise, against so great a foeContending, and so doubtful what might fall.I laugh when those who at the spear are boldAnd venturous, if that fail them, shrink, and fearWhat yet they know must follow—to endureExile, or igominy, or bonds, or pain,The sentence of their Conqueror. This is nowOur doom; which if we can sustain and bear,Our Supreme Foe in time may much remitHis anger, and perhaps, thus far removed,Not mind us not offending, satisfiedWith what is punished; whence these raging firesWill slacken, if his breath stir not their flames.Our purer essence then will overcomeTheir noxious vapour; or, inured, not feel;Or, changed at length, and to the place conformedIn temper and in nature, will receiveFamiliar the fierce heat; and, void of pain,This horror will grow mild, this darkness light;Besides what hope the never-ending flightOf future days may bring, what chance, what changeWorth waiting—since our present lot appearsFor happy though but ill, for ill not worst,If we procure not to ourselves more woe.” Thus Belial, with words clothed in reason’s garb,Counselled ignoble ease and peaceful sloth,Not peace; and after him thus Mammon spake:— “Either to disenthrone the King of HeavenWe war, if war be best, or to regainOur own right lost. Him to unthrone we thenMay hope, when everlasting Fate shall yieldTo fickle Chance, and Chaos judge the strife.The former, vain to hope, argues as vainThe latter; for what place can be for usWithin Heaven’s bound, unless Heaven’s Lord supremeWe overpower? Suppose he should relentAnd publish grace to all, on promise madeOf new subjection; with what eyes could weStand in his presence humble, and receiveStrict laws imposed, to celebrate his throneWith warbled hyms, and to his Godhead singForced hallelujahs, while he lordly sitsOur envied sovereign, and his altar breathesAmbrosial odours and ambrosial flowers,Our servile offerings? This must be our taskIn Heaven, this our delight. How wearisomeEternity so spent in worship paidTo whom we hate! Let us not then pursue,By force impossible, by leave obtainedUnacceptable, though in Heaven, our stateOf splendid vassalage; but rather seekOur own good from ourselves, and from our ownLive to ourselves, though in this vast recess,Free and to none accountable, preferringHard liberty before the easy yokeOf servile pomp. Our greatness will appearThen most conspicuous when great things of small,Useful of hurtful, prosperous of adverse,We can create, and in what place soe’erThrive under evil, and work ease out of painThrough labour and endurance. This deep worldOf darkness do we dread? How oft amidstThick clouds and dark doth Heaven’s all-ruling SireChoose to reside, his glory unobscured,And with the majesty of darkness roundCovers his throne, from whence deep thunders roar.Mustering their rage, and Heaven resembles Hell!As he our darkness, cannot we his lightImitate when we please? This desert soilWants not her hidden lustre, gems and gold;Nor want we skill or art from whence to raiseMagnificence; and what can Heaven show more?Our torments also may, in length of time,Become our elements, these piercing firesAs soft as now severe, our temper changedInto their temper; which must needs removeThe sensible of pain. All things inviteTo peaceful counsels, and the settled stateOf order, how in safety best we mayCompose our present evils, with regardOf what we are and where, dismissing quiteAll thoughts of war. Ye have what I advise.” He scarce had finished, when such murmur filledTh’ assembly as when hollow rocks retainThe sound of blustering winds, which all night longHad roused the sea, now with hoarse cadence lullSeafaring men o’erwatched, whose bark by chanceOr pinnace, anchors in a craggy bayAfter the tempest. Such applause was heardAs Mammon ended, and his sentence pleased,Advising peace: for such another fieldThey dreaded worse than Hell; so much the fearOf thunder and the sword of MichaelWrought still within them; and no less desireTo found this nether empire, which might rise,By policy and long process of time,In emulation opposite to Heaven.Which when Beelzebub perceived—than whom,Satan except, none higher sat—with graveAspect he rose, and in his rising seemedA pillar of state. Deep on his front engravenDeliberation sat, and public care;And princely counsel in his face yet shone,Majestic, though in ruin. Sage he stoodWith Atlantean shoulders, fit to bearThe weight of mightiest monarchies; his lookDrew audience and attention still as nightOr summer’s noontide air, while thus he spake:— “Thrones and Imperial Powers, Offspring of Heaven,Ethereal Virtues! or these titles nowMust we renounce, and, changing style, be calledPrinces of Hell? for so the popular voteInclines—here to continue, and build up hereA growing empire; doubtless! while we dream,And know not that the King of Heaven hath doomedThis place our dungeon, not our safe retreatBeyond his potent arm, to live exemptFrom Heaven’s high jurisdiction, in new leagueBanded against his throne, but to remainIn strictest *******, though thus far removed,Under th’ inevitable curb, reservedHis captive multitude. For he, to be sure,In height or depth, still first and last will reignSole king, and of his kingdom lose no partBy our revolt, but over Hell extendHis empire, and with iron sceptre ruleUs here, as with his golden those in Heaven.What sit we then projecting peace and war?War hath determined us and foiled with lossIrreparable; terms of peace yet noneVouchsafed or sought; for what peace will be givenTo us enslaved, but custody severe,And stripes and arbitrary punishmentInflicted? and what peace can we return,But, to our power, hostility and hate,Untamed reluctance, and revenge, though slow,Yet ever plotting how the Conqueror leastMay reap his conquest, and may least rejoiceIn doing what we most in suffering feel?Nor will occasion want, nor shall we needWith dangerous expedition to invadeHeaven, whose high walls fear no assault or siege,Or ambush from the Deep. What if we findSome easier enterprise? There is a place(If ancient and prophetic fame in HeavenErr not)—another World, the happy seatOf some new race, called Man, about this timeTo be created like to us, though lessIn power and excellence, but favoured moreOf him who rules above; so was his willPronounced among the Gods, and by an oathThat shook Heaven’s whole circumference confirmed.Thither let us bend all our thoughts, to learnWhat creatures there inhabit, of what mouldOr substance, how endued, and what their powerAnd where their weakness: how attempted best,By force of subtlety. Though Heaven be shut,And Heaven’s high Arbitrator sit secureIn his own strength, this place may lie exposed,The utmost border of his kingdom, leftTo their defence who hold it: here, perhaps,Some advantageous act may be achievedBy sudden onset—either with Hell-fireTo waste his whole creation, or possessAll as our own, and drive, as we were driven,The puny habitants; or, if not drive,****** them to our party, that their GodMay prove their foe, and with repenting handAbolish his own works. This would surpassCommon revenge, and interrupt his joyIn our confusion, and our joy upraiseIn his disturbance; when his darling sons,Hurled headlong to partake with us, shall curseTheir frail original, and faded bliss—Faded so soon! Advise if this be worthAttempting, or to sit in darkness hereHatching vain empires.” Thus beelzebubPleaded his devilish counsel—first devisedBy Satan, and in part proposed: for whence,But

The escalator of despairWas waiting with her normal nonchalance stareHer teeth constantly in motionOffering the tip of a landscape belowA place of not knowing, not a place one is keen to go

I stepped on her teeth with huge trepidationLeaving behind what was once was a friendly station

I rode the escalators down to this placeReading posters, signs of things that Were going to take placeTheatre, drama, the musical of my lifeA pantomime made of my own strive

I followed the tunnels deeper they fellMarking out pathways and other people’s roads to hell

I found myself on a platformCold and BleakI looked around me in the hopeOf finding someone to whom I could speak

But I found no map of the line I was attendingInstead just a blankness and huge hole, darkness and frightThat looked unendingLooking for direction, for the interchanges that my destinationWas depending.

I could hear the sound of the train approachingI could feel vibrations and and see rats encroachingEncroaching on my light now lost, glimpses of my life beginning to rot

Don’t dance over the yellow line they said, stand backFor the train approaching is just aheadIts lights dancing on the tunnels wallsAnnouncing its arrival, big not small

The noise is deafening, screeching and loudThe voice of my own despair now hidden in its vacuous cloud

A smashing sound as it brakes throughThe blackness into light speeding throughHugging the platform really tightReducing space so as passengers can alight

Doors part open and people descend On to a platform that appears to have no endThis is not a place to stand stillThe body of people is a perfume despair wants to distill

So move down the platform and keep shuffling alongBelongings of your heart held tight moving to the rhythm of the throng

So I enter the carriage quickly and sitNext to a man clutching his pitThe pit that comes to close to meSmells rank and ****** and full of hypocrisy

Off into a place that is forever darkMomentary fireworks the only sparksThat give you a glimpse of another lineA line perhaps to happiness or somewhere else sublime

Out of nowhere a train caresses, moves so closeand brings aboard a message

For other people are traveling tooTo places that were not on their list of ‘to do’’Riding parallel down darkened tunnels Moving to their own rhythm, humming their own songRocked by a train, speeding hastily alongTurning a corner and now that train is gone

So we are not alone on the darkest rides that we takeWe are not alone on the escalators that we think I taking us to meet our fateFor we all have a choice an opportunity to rideAlone or with travelers by our side

O, for that warning voice, which he, who saw The Apocalypse, heard cry in Heaven aloud, Then when the Dragon, put to second rout, Came furious down to be revenged on men, Woe to the inhabitants on earth! that now, While time was, our first parents had been warned The coming of their secret foe, and ’scaped, Haply so ’scaped his mortal snare: For now Satan, now first inflamed with rage, came down, The tempter ere the accuser of mankind, To wreak on innocent frail Man his loss Of that first battle, and his flight to Hell: Yet, not rejoicing in his speed, though bold Far off and fearless, nor with cause to boast, Begins his dire attempt; which nigh the birth Now rolling boils in his tumultuous breast, And like a devilish engine back recoils Upon himself; horrour and doubt distract His troubled thoughts, and from the bottom stir The Hell within him; for within him Hell He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell One step, no more than from himself, can fly By change of place: Now conscience wakes despair, That slumbered; wakes the bitter memory Of what he was, what is, and what must be Worse; of worse deeds worse sufferings must ensue. Sometimes towards Eden, which now in his view Lay pleasant, his grieved look he fixes sad; Sometimes towards Heaven, and the full-blazing sun, Which now sat high in his meridian tower: Then, much revolving, thus in sighs began. O thou, that, with surpassing glory crowned, Lookest from thy sole dominion like the God Of this new world; at whose sight all the stars Hide their diminished heads; to thee I call, But with no friendly voice, and add thy name, Of Sun! to tell thee how I hate thy beams, That bring to my remembrance from what state I fell, how glorious once above thy sphere; Till pride and worse ambition threw me down Warring in Heaven against Heaven’s matchless King: Ah, wherefore! he deserved no such return From me, whom he created what I was In that bright eminence, and with his good Upbraided none; nor was his service hard. What could be less than to afford him praise, The easiest recompence, and pay him thanks, How due! yet all his good proved ill in me, And wrought but malice; lifted up so high I sdeined subjection, and thought one step higher Would set me highest, and in a moment quit The debt immense of endless gratitude, So burdensome still paying, still to owe, Forgetful what from him I still received, And understood not that a grateful mind By owing owes not, but still pays, at once Indebted and discharged; what burden then O, had his powerful destiny ordained Me some inferiour Angel, I had stood Then happy; no unbounded hope had raised Ambition! Yet why not some other Power As great might have aspired, and me, though mean, Drawn to his part; but other Powers as great Fell not, but stand unshaken, from within Or from without, to all temptations armed. Hadst thou the same free will and power to stand? Thou hadst: whom hast thou then or what to accuse, But Heaven’s free love dealt equally to all? Be then his love accursed, since love or hate, To me alike, it deals eternal woe. Nay, cursed be thou; since against his thy will Chose freely what it now so justly rues. Me miserable! which way shall I fly Infinite wrath, and infinite despair? Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell; And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep Still threatening to devour me opens wide, To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heaven. O, then, at last relent: Is there no place Left for repentance, none for pardon left? None left but by submission; and that word Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame Among the Spirits beneath, whom I seduced With other promises and other vaunts Than to submit, boasting I could subdue The Omnipotent. Ay me! they little know How dearly I abide that boast so vain, Under what torments inwardly I groan, While they adore me on the throne of Hell. With diadem and scepter high advanced, The lower still I fall, only supreme In misery: Such joy ambition finds. But say I could repent, and could obtain, By act of grace, my former state; how soon Would highth recall high thoughts, how soon unsay What feigned submission swore? Ease would recant Vows made in pain, as violent and void. For never can true reconcilement grow, Where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep: Which would but lead me to a worse relapse And heavier fall: so should I purchase dear Short intermission bought with double smart. This knows my Punisher; therefore as far From granting he, as I from begging, peace; All hope excluded thus, behold, in stead Mankind created, and for him this world. So farewell, hope; and with hope farewell, fear; Farewell, remorse! all good to me is lost; Evil, be thou my good; by thee at least Divided empire with Heaven’s King I hold, By thee, and more than half perhaps will reign; As Man ere long, and this new world, shall know. Thus while he spake, each passion dimmed his face Thrice changed with pale, ire, envy, and despair; Which marred his borrowed visage, and betrayed Him counterfeit, if any eye beheld. For heavenly minds from such distempers foul Are ever clear. Whereof he soon aware, Each perturbation smoothed with outward calm, Artificer of fraud; and was the first That practised falsehood under saintly show, Deep malice to conceal, couched with revenge: Yet not enough had practised to deceive Uriel once warned; whose eye pursued him down The way he went, and on the Assyrian mount Saw him disfigured, more than could befall Spirit of happy sort; his gestures fierce He marked and mad demeanour, then alone, As he supposed, all unobserved, unseen. So on he fares, and to the border comes Of Eden, where delicious Paradise, Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green, As with a rural mound, the champaign head Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides Access denied; and overhead upgrew Insuperable height of loftiest shade, Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm, A sylvan scene, and, as the ranks ascend, Shade above shade, a woody theatre Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops The verdurous wall of Paradise upsprung;

Which to our general sire gave prospect large Into his nether empire neighbouring round. And higher than that wall a circling row Of goodliest trees, loaden with fairest fruit, Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue, Appeared, with gay enamelled colours mixed: On which the sun more glad impressed his beams Than in fair evening cloud, or humid bow, When God hath showered the earth; so lovely seemed That landskip: And of pure now purer air Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires Vernal delight and joy, able to drive All sadness but despair: Now gentle gales, Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole Those balmy spoils. As when to them who fail Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past Mozambick, off at sea north-east winds blow Sabean odours from the spicy shore Of Araby the blest; with such delay Well pleased they slack their course, and many a league Cheered with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles: So entertained those odorous sweets the Fiend, Who came their bane; though with them better pleased Than Asmodeus with the fishy fume That drove him, though enamoured, from the spouse Of Tobit’s son, and with a vengeance sent From Media post to Egypt, there fast bound. Now to the ascent of that steep savage hill Satan had journeyed on, pensive and slow; But further way found none, so thick entwined, As one continued brake, the undergrowth Of shrubs and tangling bushes had perplexed All path of man or beast that passed that way. One gate there only was, and that looked east On the other side: which when the arch-felon saw, Due entrance he disdained; and, in contempt, At one flight bound high over-leaped all bound Of hill or highest wall, and sheer within Lights on his feet. As when a prowling wolf, Whom hunger drives to seek new haunt for prey, Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve In hurdled cotes amid the field secure, Leaps o’er the fence with ease into the fold: Or as a thief, bent to unhoard the cash Of some rich burgher, whose substantial doors, Cross-barred and bolted fast, fear no assault, In at the window climbs, or o’er the tiles: So clomb this first grand thief into God’s fold; So since into his church lewd hirelings climb. Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life, The middle tree and highest there that grew, Sat like a cormorant; yet not true life Thereby regained, but sat devising death To them who lived; nor on the virtue thought Of that life-giving plant, but only used For prospect, what well used had been the pledge Of immortality. So little knows Any, but God alone, to value right The good before him, but perverts best things To worst abuse, or to their meanest use. Beneath him with new wonder now he views, To all delight of human sense exposed, In narrow room, Nature’s whole wealth, yea more, A Heaven on Earth: For blissful Paradise Of God the garden was, by him in the east Of Eden planted; Eden stretched her line From Auran eastward to the royal towers Of great Seleucia, built by Grecian kings, Of where the sons of Eden long before Dwelt in Telassar: In this pleasant soil His far more pleasant garden God ordained; Out of the fertile ground he caused to grow All trees of noblest kind for sight, smell, taste; And all amid them stood the tree of life, High eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit Of vegetable gold; and next to life, Our death, the tree of knowledge, grew fast by, Knowledge of good bought dear by knowing ill. Southward through Eden went a river large, Nor changed his course, but through the shaggy hill Passed underneath ingulfed; for God had thrown That mountain as his garden-mould high raised Upon the rapid current, which, through veins Of porous earth with kindly thirst up-drawn, Rose a fresh fountain, and with many a rill Watered the garden; thence united fell Down the steep glade, and met the nether flood, Which from his darksome passage now appears, And now, divided into four main streams, Runs diverse, wandering many a famous realm And country, whereof here needs no account; But rather to tell how, if Art could tell, How from that sapphire fount the crisped brooks, Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold, With mazy errour under pendant shades Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed Flowers worthy of Paradise, which not nice Art In beds and curious knots, but Nature boon Poured forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain, Both where the morning sun first warmly smote The open field, and where the unpierced shade Imbrowned the noontide bowers: Thus was this place A happy rural seat of various view; Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm, Others whose fruit, burnished with golden rind, Hung amiable, Hesperian fables true, If true, here only, and of delicious taste: Betwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks Grazing the tender herb, were interposed, Or palmy hillock; or the flowery lap Of some irriguous valley spread her store, Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose: Another side, umbrageous grots and caves Of cool recess, o’er which the mantling vine Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps Luxuriant; mean while murmuring waters fall Down the ***** hills, dispersed, or in a lake, That to the fringed bank with myrtle crowned Her crystal mirrour holds, unite their streams. The birds their quire apply; airs, vernal airs, Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune The trembling leaves, while universal Pan, Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance, Led on the eternal Spring. Not that fair field Of Enna, where Proserpine gathering flowers, Herself a fairer flower by gloomy Dis Was gathered, which cost Ceres all that pain To seek her through the world; nor that sweet grove Of Daphne by Orontes, and the inspired Castalian spring, might with this Paradise Of Eden strive; nor that Nyseian isle Girt with the river Triton, where old Cham, Whom Gentiles Ammon call and Libyan Jove, Hid Amalthea, and her florid son Young Bacchus, from his stepdame Rhea’s eye; Nor where Abassin kings their issue guard, Mount Amara, though this by some supposed True Paradise under the Ethiop line By Nilus’ head, enclosed with shining rock, A whole day’s journey high, but wide remote From this Assyrian garden, where the Fiend Saw, undelighted, all delight, all kind Of living creatures, new to sight, and strange Two of far nobler shape, ***** and tall, Godlike *****, with native honour clad In naked majesty seemed lords of all: And worthy seemed; for in their looks divine The image of their glorious Maker shone, Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure, (Severe, but in true filial freedom placed,) Whence true authority in men; though both Not equal, as their *** not equal seemed; For contemplation he and valour formed; For softness she and sweet attractive grace; He for God only, she for God in him: His fair large front and eye sublime declared Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks Round from his parted forelock manly hung Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad: She, as a veil, down to the slender waist Her unadorned golden tresses wore Dishevelled, but in wanton ringlets waved As the vine curls her tendrils, which implied Subjection, but required with gentle sway, And by her yielded, by him best received, Yielded with coy submission, modest pride, And sweet, reluctant, amorous delay. Nor those mysterious parts were then concealed; Then was not guilty shame, dishonest shame Of nature’s works, honour dishonourable, Sin-bred, how have ye troubled all mankind With shows instead, mere shows of seeming pure, And banished from man’s life his happiest life, Simplicity and spotless innocence! So passed they naked on, nor shunned the sight Of God or Angel; for they thought no ill: So hand in hand they passed, the loveliest pair, That ever since in love’s embraces met; Adam the goodliest man of men since born His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve. Under a tuft of shade that on a green Stood whispering soft, by a fresh fountain side They sat them down; and, after no more toil Of their sweet gardening labour than sufficed To recommend cool Zephyr, and made ease More easy, wholesome thirst and appetite More grateful, to their supper-fruits they fell, Nectarine fruits which the compliant boughs Yielded them, side-long as they sat recline On the soft downy bank damasked with flowers: The savoury pulp they chew, and in the rind, Still as they thirsted, scoop the brimming stream; Nor gentle purpose, nor endearing smiles Wanted, nor youthful dalliance, as beseems Fair couple, linked in happy nuptial league, Alone as they. About them frisking played All beasts of the earth, since wild, and of all chase In wood or wilderness, forest or den; Sporting the lion ramped, and in his paw Dandled the kid; bears, tigers, ounces, pards, Gambolled before them; the unwieldy elephant, To make them mirth, used all his might, and wreathed His?kithetmroboscis; close the serpent sly, Insinuating, wove with Gordian twine His braided train, and of his fatal guile Gave proof unheeded; others on the grass Couched, and now filled with pasture gazing sat, Or bedward ruminating; for the sun, Declined, was hasting now with prone career To the ocean isles, and in the ascending scale Of Heaven the stars that usher evening rose: When Satan still in gaze, as first he stood, Scarce thus at length failed speech recovered sad. O Hell! what do mine eyes with grief behold! Into our room of bliss thus high advanced Creatures of other mould, earth-born perhaps, Not Spirits, yet to heavenly Spirits bright Little inferiour; whom my thoughts pursue

Despair watches me as I smileWaiting for the moment, silentlyOne moment of tranquillity I findPounces on me like a demonDevouring the intrails of meAs it slowly poisons my mindTo be fed by it or to feed itI surrender to it, a rotten apple.

Despair watches me as I try smiling againThis time I have a wild thought Do I surrender again as I did beforeOr try to control the urge to loseTo lose the balance in me for a whileOr Just let it pass like how I tried beforeAm Trying very hard to be ignoredBut the demon is strong, devours me..

Despair watches me as I cryThis time I let it watch me crying aloneLost all hopes of being a better manAll the lost thoughts come crawling againWithin me I lost the light I had foundOutside it was grey at the momentCrying with a smile I searched for itI found my lost name. I am. Despair...

Sweet-lipped Psyche's pale white skinAll the men in Greece dragged in.And the poor girl's dark brown eyes Led Aphrodite her to despise.For Psyche truly was a beauty,Reputed as brighter than Aphrodite.If Aphrodite was a dark red rose,Of which we've written poetry and prose,Psyche was a pure-white AganisiaFor which they wrote a deep-sea saga.But she knew it was sore unwise To find herself level with a Goddess' eyes.The only proof needed for Psyche Was the sad fate of the maiden Arachne,Who challenged Athena to a weaving contest,And though her tapestry was judged the best,It was she that ended as the melancholy loser,For Athena punished her with the life of a spider.And so it was that Psyche knewAphrodite wold claim her life too.So Aphrodite sent her son,The lovely, winged, holy one,Whose golden arrows fly at nightAnd relieve bored lovers of their plights.She sent Eros to shoot his arrowAnd pierce it through to Psyche's marrow,Then set before her a crocodile,The scaly terror of the Nile,With which she'd fall in love straightway,And then she'd come to rue the day.For crocodiles have no love to give,So it would eat her, and she'd cease to live.On the sleeping Psyche Eros descended,Long before the night had ended,In whose dainty breast to shoveA golden arrow poisoned with love.He prepared to bury it to the hilt,But a drop of love on him was spilt,At the moment he saw her eyes, dark brown,Look to him and stare him down.Then Eros went back to his mother And told her he could not wed another Who did not shine quite so brightlyAs his sweet-lipped brown-eyed Psyche.So spiteful Aphrodite cursedPsyche through her red lips pursed,That the girl would find no husbandAmong God, animal, or man.And Eros this so greatly angeredHe could no more with arrows lingerAt the foot of lovers' bedsTo foster love in their young heads.The entire world then ceased to loveWhether it walked on foot or hoof.Whether it swam or flew on wingIt could not love nor gain others' loving.When love no longer circulated,Aphrodite it aggravatedTo see her temple lying bareAnd to feel the gray growing in her hair.She told Eros he'd have what he desiredIf only he would kindle love's fires.So at the mountain, Psyche's family offered herAnd she was borne away on the back of ZephyrTo Eros' golden gay abodeThat he and his ghostly servants called home.In the golden rooms she wandered by daylight,But she lay with Eros in the dark when came night.She knew not who her darling was,But called her ignorance a test of trust.Never to look upon him by day,She continued in this way,Until she longed to visit her family,Which her husband granted her gladly.But he held her, and he warned herNot to let her sisters persuade her."They may try to tear you awayBy telling you gruesome stories." he'd say.Then, trippingly, from Olympus she jumped downTo walk the streets of her hometown.She told her sisters her whole storyAnd they turned it into something gory."He could be a serpent," they'd say,"Fattening you up for the dayWhen he can pop you in his mouth and eat you"Unfortunately, she took their words as true."So, when he comes to you at night,Just gaze on him by candlelight!If he's a serpent, use this knife,And you'll no longer be his wife.But make sure not to spill the oil,Or his waking will cause great turmoil!We'll find out about that young buck!Use the candle, the knife, don't spill, and good luck!"She walked back to the palace at their behest,Butterflies banging within her chest.Could the faceless man with whom she'd spent her nightsBe revealed as a serpent by candlelight?She did not have to wait for longTo prove her treacherous sisters wrong.As she lay in the great soft bed,The instructions tangled inside her head,And lighting the candle, she almost fumbled,But when she saw his face, she truly stumbled!Eros' beauty knocked her senseless,Leaving mortal Psyche defenseless,And causing her to spill the oil, which smolderedOn Eros' godly golden shoulder.He, awaking with a startWas disappointed to his heartThat Psyche cold be so unfaithfulAnd make a decision so egregiously fatal.Then, jumping from the casing, he flewOut of Psyche's lustful view.And she, for her part, suddenly foundThat from the palace she'd been cast downTo a field of which she had no memory,Or very dim, if she had any.In despair, she began to flounder,Then resigned herself to wanderUntil she came to a temple edifice,Which was, on Earth, Aphrodite's face,And begged the unseen Goddess hear her out,Trying her patience with childish whining shouts.Aphrodite, trying only to divert,Cast a basket of grains down to the dirt,And told the weeping lovely malcontentThat if she sorted the grains 'fore day was spent,She just may see her sweetheart once again.All she had to do was sort the grain.But Psyche, though her fingers were dainty and thin,To separate the grains could not begin,And sobbing, lay upon the stony floorThat was as cold as the Goddess had acted before.The ants, which had been drawn to the golden grain,Bore her load and relieved her of her pain.In their famously sure and straight black line,They each picked up a piece of grain so fineThat it might with ease pass through a needle,And into order they the sweet grain wheedled.Then at the very setting of the sun,Aphrodite found the task was done,And though she praised the poor girl outwardly,Inside she felt the bloom of hate for Psyche.So she set her down on one side of a stream,Where on the other was a field of green,In which lived Helios' golden sheepFrom which she was to obtain some shining fleece.Then Aphrodite left her there to play,And flew to Mount Olympus far away.But Flumen, God of Rivers, raised his headTo warn sweet Psyche from his riverbedThat the sheep were so fierce, if she but pulled one hair,They'd all turn on her and eat her then and there.It was better if she waited 'til middayWhen the sheep lay down to sleep the heat away.Then she could cross where the river rushes,And pick the wool that had got caught in the bushes.So Psyche followed Flumen's good advice,And for Aphrodite's cruelty she paid no price.Aphrodite's blood boiled when she sawThat Psyche had survived it after all.Again, she tried to send her to her deathAnd charged her to collect water from a cleftWhich mortal humans could not enter,And in which serpents would surely spend her.But now it was an eagle came to her aid,Who stormed inside and flew between the snakes,Then picked a pouch of water in its beak,And back out of the cleft to Psyche it sneaked.Aphrodite, at her dastardly wit's end,Devised a horrible place for her to Psyche send."Psyche, caring for my ailing sonHas drained each drop of beauty, every one,From my former glory of a face.Therefore, I command you to that placeWhere Persephone dwells. Then you must begFor some of her beauty, just a tiny dreg.Then you may have my son, I give my promise,As holding him from you has marred my face."Then Psyche, with tears streaming from her eyes,Decided the only way there was to die.In what she had appointed her fatal hour,She climbed up to the top of a high tower,But her melancholy was so disturbingly great,All the Universe moved to it abate,So that the very tower she climbed upon,Awoke and spoke to her as if a person."Psyche, there is a way to the Underworld alive,So that you need not from my roofing dive."And to the Underworld the tower gave herA route and some directions just to save her,Then it sternly warned her that not of meat,Nor of anything but bread in Hades could she eat.So she followed the Tower's path back downAnd disappeared into the heaving ground.And when she found herself before Persephone's throneShe asked to take a parcel of her beauty home,Which the emotionless Queen of the Screaming ******Without word placed in Psyche's quivering hand.The hardest part of the impossible task being done,Psyche headed back up toward the sun,And, reasoning that she was to see her beloved before nightfall,Decided to use some beauty from the parcel.Inside she found not beauty, but a stifling sleep,Which forever in its clutches would she keepIf Eros had not chancely happened by,And wiped Persephone's sleep from Psyche's eye.Then, carrying her on his back, he bargedInto the Hall of the Olympian Gods.He bade them let him wed himself and PsycheAnd disregard the protests of Aphrodite.Then Jupiter, indeed, allowed it obligingly,For he was a man who greatly enjoyed a party.Ambrosia she was given so to sealHer immortality and place her among the surreal.Then after many years of love and laughter,Psyche bore Hedone, their lovely daughter.This is how the beauty of the Human Soul,Triumphed over the beauty of lust and gold.All this Eros and Psyche had to take.All this they endured for their love's sake.They demonstrate the purity of love,That is admired by Gods above.In the end, it is the pure MariposaWho is more deserving of ambrosia.

off to seek his final peacean earthly occupation endedhe’ll suffer worldly hate no moredown the aisle his coffin wended

the family closely followed a mother haltingly sobbing faithful marines came forthto steady her wobbling

there is no sudden wakingfrom this terrible dreamthe pungent incense roseto the chapels sacred beams

the stained glass murals depict the passion of Jesus’s storyilluming a consuming sorrow in all its grace filled glory

the ***** of death slinks on againwe search for consolationthe recompense of honor blestleaves a hollow heart wantingno answers offered to quell the darkof these terrible life’s momentsonly the desperate need to hold onto beleaguered treasure that sustains us

for we are always faithfulto the things we knowalways faithful to the things we refuse to let go

12.

the color guard and funeral detail assembled in front of St. Luke’sthe cemetery right next doorthe procession a short troop

the living will stumble through the darkness of separationseeking elusive answersof poignant uncertainty; all gave some, Joey gave allnothing more required for his journey through eternity

Joey will always be with us his stories forever retoldas long as the machinery of great nations engage the gears of wasteful war

Joey’s spirit lives in a peoples desire for freedom, only if our hope of peace is greater than theneed for conflict

Joey’s lifes workis sure to bear fruitif those remainingfight the good fightby taking up thetask to protect andexpand the valuesof liberty we hold most dear

Fragile egg-shell mind on dawn’s highway bleeding the segue between times traversed only in momentary dreams or in enduring excursions

We drag our droll and quaint 60s baggage like the luggage of a safari made of concrete girding a cavernous expanse of unheralded ground

With our ears oriented to the floor, we leap out of body never to deplore….never to ignore….never to miss the blue bus of our drafted imaginations, so carefully culled from brash elitism

I trounce the intervening time between being friendless and an ironic end, and an irenic comrade becoming the dearest amazed but always aplomb friend

We simper in our glorious traversal, and though bedraggled through an ornamented cavern we linger just long enough to be celebrated

Then a blues riff emanates from a vapid bar, and finally someone heralds my exhumed memory still rusty with the pavement of encased concrete on an empty or full tomb

So I wander in my mind to that roughshod Paris glassy tincture a romanticized gild of proper sensibility crafted in the tongues of lizards emulating the tongues of serpentine Anglicans

As the power of love transcends the love of power, both are afforded serendipitously upon the stately occasion of a fitful revolt where heads literally rolled and deaths still unfurl from the slippage of a violent malevolent eternity, crafting a new creative way to expedite the smite of preventable scourge

So Jim, I see your picaresque side and your wide-eyed love for a listless ship anointed of a crystal blip just detectable long enough on RADAR to become the statistic to crack the slim WHIP

No wigs are needed at this formality, no figs grow from trees forty-five years buried and almost a full month unsung

Pitiable cretins of an invented insanity, they scoff at my ravenous and portentous heart for its excess and for aligning with an upstart verging on only a specious insanity

Why in all humanity could a month be mustered with every defense of history and yet for it to be so widely flouted as a risible exercise in futility

The irony that the artistic glamor of a past vogue becoming a revival that is often toked only to one song but never to the memorial of great cavernous and commodious imaginations, staggers with dismay where otherwise the mayday would be a disaster but still a great day

Then I look at a triggered-fingered omen of a death so ominous yet so brazenly confronted as the ambassadors of time provide plaudits to a fearless martyrdom

Why such a sad spate, why such a stringent but malevolent fate a malediction on a family whose crest is not crestfallen like rolling waves but ornamented with gravity impounding its own weight

A fugacious tomb, an eternal flame, a swan song announcing an independent authority on a prescient demise mashed and deprived

A single shot rippling through the broadened space between clasped eternity and a histrionic disgrace as a psychological confederate pays lip service to a reiterative applause

A cousin hardly American in a defected record of incendiary plumes of a hoarse hatred of waxen discs and flying discs alike, climbs out of a bonfire mounted purely out of vindictive spite

Then upon a great white buffalo a wrapped package of Californian love before California ever alighted like something beyond an avaricious dove, saw a rocky park and a hearth of illuminated darkness the singular spark

Captain Morgan knows the jackknife applause of a botched deal morphing into a disbelieved spiel. A shibboleth of enormous mystical weight crashing down from an ethereal abode and heaven heavily saddened cannot hardly appeal

Then a loving spoonful of crystal blue persuasion led me to Ethel’s regimented keepsake and for once in my life nobility and I became a grateful waif. But temerity laughed, splintered spacecraft, and the wooden paws of a bearish applause led to resurgent clarity

Blinking stars shattered by knighted and raw applause punctured the liberated might of a sentient hortatory savior grasped by the internecine wrench of a waxen time

An indie track slides by unnoticed in an aleatory time, and the threadbare whine of centuries of lament becomes a dastardly barn set ablaze with the fury of ancients and the scurry of faineant patents

Perfidy slides in recess, and in gentle forbearance the winged angel lingers like a halo on conifer and spring above a remedial ring

I dial frisky celerity tingling the dangling claws of a raven’s screed and in plunder of all history’s pilfer secrets I eagerly weave a tapestry Indiana Jones himself would be proud to watch

Not the riotous ruin of a mystery tour of verdure crippled by genocide but overcome by the revived life of raised rain razing the moments of indelible pain

But the culmination of a proffered time taken at its word for its every careened bird, for its every brazen gird. The manger of proctored stars calls us home tonight and home forever. Life in quaked timorous stumbles suddenly no longer so fitfully absurd.

The quixotic plundered of pirates and emperors in direct emulation of some crooned pastiche of whittled integrity, surges above any encased blurb and any vain testament to a pyramid rigid in destiny and ragged in desultory and sturdy sincerity

Multiplying the ineffable by the division of arable divorced from edible is too creative to be eaten as pabulum when sparks curdle flickered moonlight crimson and that become golden only to the last laugh of ennobled ragamuffins

Frankly the desert of melliferous gorillas abetting the lark of a heavily vetted camarilla engaged in the sinecure of a rigged wall on a main street to block the tall from the lame bleat. Stocks grazed, costs engaged on a littoral beach at the end of a Bossy promenade

This prayer is a cutthroat collapse of a merry spare, a ribbed ****** waiting to plunge into the antithesis of female despair, but sincere in its restraint that vixens courted in love aren’t courted in litigation of a wagered dare

Ambulances chase Deloreans through the desolate moon-stricken skies of a time agape with fleets of phantasmagoria on a Cliffside too wise to ever mince words or excise cries

Skulking the red-teared caverns of entombed films and lampooned tinctures on a passion vetted only for certain and utter deracinated disguise, I wallop with winged men in a single soul armed to the teeth with inveterate tithes to eternal internments of poached and endangered gazettes

As growth older in wizened skin bets on epithets rather than epitaphs for rinsed peace and triumphant clefts we leap above in orbit of only the bellowing nether of blown tolls and untold souls aggregating the esoteric grasp of Alexandrian tomes

The denumeration of certainty is a carousel of wonder, a splurge of time ripped asunder with majesties of paparazzi scuttled impacts a throttled iniquity of regalia’s indicted blunder frenchified but still clean with inestimable sheens

With twenty-five dollars, a dime an assist and a nickeled reiteration of currency already so personable it is divine and sublime in crazed desist I watch the embroiled natives clash in denatured violence with the warriors of a crossed repast hearkening to an old land much of ire but too much of grandstand to ultimately last

Itching for a holy field husk of peerless ties listed as rumpus and beer, a two-packed smoked by bludgeoned blokes careless in irascible sputters of a muffled doom, a Vegan becomes the author of too many sacrosanct homilies becoming defiled witchcraft brooms dead on arrival too many lionized tombs

In plaudits and the scause of an amplified “what if?” of an olfactory nightmare of petrified fog of effluvium bogged in Wade and in heat it is always clogged, sinewy libations of toasted preemptive revenge become a powerballed hog

A castle in the sky founded on Franklin but scourged of wineskins brimming with a distilled time, a swift repartee becomes the whispered ladder of saints blather becoming not rather other than a Dan Rather spatter

A door breeched by a broached inconvenience of amphigory beyond common reach, I clamber excess and whisk the lingered love into destiny beyond any word other than a beseeched preach of nothing tired but everything inspired of noble love with abundance often to teach

Fireworks of turned tides of fallow tithes to aliens beyond any conceivable bribe the bushwhacker writhes but survives staying alive without even a hint of garbled jive a 27th floor glass elevator is quite a resplendent ride

Wellsprings knowing radical rolled tides of errant dice also themselves guilty of confessional tithes to the monolith of avarice at the nooked cranny of an evaporated time we whine as the police sting the album rained with songs too lugubrious to sing but in their elegy every lonely heart has a propinquity phone of souled resonance ring

Iterative mastery of a mathematics of love, loss decay and the dross of a dental Occidental floss, the sweep of screened queues become questions of inestimable importance to foreign dues on a horse with no name but so consumed with fumes

A fright occultist thriller prowls in a waylaying daylight, masquerading an innocent confection for a rescued triage of a dawn stabbed with knives in our last dying days of trembled plight

He resurrects only the wraiths of detest, squinted at by the putrefaction of summoned cardiac arrest and littered with bullets that somehow can penetrate even impregnable bullet proof vests the wrapped carcass of the mummified husk of ready despair offers itself a ghoulish and raspy prayer

Synchronized in a low roaring swathe of rollercoasters too immersive to ride, the terpsichorean obscurantism of deliberately shattered fragments becoming blurbs dismissed with hijacked deride the carnival of a summer sun becomes the ocean of limitless love becoming endless fun

We forget the drawl of the droll old tales that haunt like specters in the closet and beneath the bedridden valetudinarian of an effrontery of shackled fright, we sprawl the innumerable caverns of prophetic insight afforded by the pantheon of history enter stage left, depart stage right

And with their insight I write and write, I grasp the tusk of democracy and wage an insurrection against the doubt of plodding limitations in otherwise immaculate sight

*** and tyrannosaurus rex, of litigable offenses leading to pardonable arrests, the gated entryway of a poetic splurge leads to the demiurge of a demotic enlightenment and suddenly the frank becomes the frazzled retirement and that haunting hounding bunny transmogrified by a shattered eye averts the car crash that careens ponderous engines out of limitless twilight blue skies.

Diamond lightning in pristine skies escorts the telegraphic totems of riddled modems from 1967 to 2016 and suddenly all venerable personages converge on a teeming scene of a union unified by a universal dream. To become everything and yet nothing and out of light and darkness to become a beatific beam